The ability to aggregate and search electronic documents and other electronic files (generically referred to herein as “items”) on an increasingly large scale necessitates development of techniques to supplement existing procedures for search and discovery.
In the past, when one viewed a list of electronic documents, for example, one would be forced to leave and return to the list each time one wished to view one of the documents in the list. What are needed are methods and systems for providing effective and rapid browsing of the contents of lists—methods and systems that don't require a reader to leave and return to a search result list (or other list) in order to examine the contents of a listed item.
Ideally, such methods or systems would replicate to some extent the experience of picking up a traditional paper-based journal or book and flicking through pages—either to find specific items or to see more generally whether there is anything worthy of closer examination. One strong advantage of this method is that one does not lose control over the current context; that is, as one holds the book one retains full control over the book while scanning; one can go backward, forward, investigate in more detail, and so on, with very little effort.
Such systems or methods would also enable users to scan more items with less fatigue, and reduce the likelihood of over-reliance on automated retrieval methods (which cannot know what is in the mind of an individual user) They would also potentially lead to serendipitous discovery of useful material in ways not currently feasible by machine.